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ft hi4 Mnifif fTTTrfffrY 1 



4r^ 



answers ot tbe Hges* 



These answers have been gathered from 
the note-books of two friends; they are 
fragmentary and in no wise meant to 
encompass the whole cloud of witnesses. 
They are offered to those who feel a 
yearning to enlarge the boundaries of 
faith. 

Extracts from well-known devotional 
books have been omitted, but many of the 
truths contained in them will be found 
here under other forms. 
The prayers and hymns have been 
chosen for their rarity. 

I. K. L. 

L. C. W. 



Ube Sacrefc S>ecaDe. 

/ What is God? 3 

77. What is Man? .... 21 

III. What is meant by the Trinity? . 35 

IV. What is Soul? .... 45 
V. What is Right Living? ... 59 

VI What is Religion ? . 87 

VII. What is Heaven? . . . .101 

VIII. Hymns ...... in 

IX. Prayers 121 

X. Visions 131 



TKHbat is (3ofc? 



answers of tbe Hges, 



TKflbat t0 <5o&? 

God is the Being who rests as end to 
Himself but toward whom all else is 
drawn through desire. 

—St. Augustine. 

God is not mind but the cause that mind 
is; God is not spirit but the cause that 
spirit is ; God is not light but the cause 
that light is; God can be venerated only 
under the name of the Good. 

— Hermes Trismegistus. 

There is nothing in everything but God. 

There is no whole but God. There is 

nothing immeasurable but God. Exter- 

3 



4 answers of tbe ages* 

nal to the One Thing which is No Thing, 
everything is nothing. 

— Druidic Triad. 

God is He who stands alone; who is eter- 
nal; who gave birth to none, nor was 
born, nor has any equal. 

— Mohammedan Inscription in Seville, 
over the Alcazar. 

That, — whence all this great creation 

came, 
Whether its will created or was mute — 
The Most High Seer, that is in highest 

heaven, — 
He knows it — or perchance He knows it 

not. 

— Rig-Veda. 

Hermes: The opinions upon God and the 
universe are many and different. I know 
not the truth. Enlighten me, O master. 



TKHbat is ©o&? 



Master: Learn, my son, this: God, Eter- 
nity, World, Time, Generation. 
God causes Eternity. 
Eternity causes the World. 
The World causes Time. 
Time causes Generation. 
Goodness, Beauty, Happiness and Wis- 
dom are the essence of God. 
The essence of Eternity is Identity. 
The essence of the World is Order. 
The essence of Time is Change. 
The essence of Generation is Life and 
Death. 

The energy of God is Intelligence and 
Soul. 

The energy of Eternity is Permanence 
and Immutability. 

The energy of the World is Composition 
and Decomposition. 

The energy of Time is Increase and 
Decrease. 
The energy of Generation is Quality. 



6 answers of tbe Bges, 

Eternity is in God. 

The World is in Eternity. 

Time is in the World. 

Generation is in Time. 

The Soul of Eternity is God. 

The Soul of the World is Eternity. 

The Soul of Earth is Heaven. 

All is living. Life is One. God is Life. 

— Table oflsis. 

Man reflects God in the material state as 
absolute force; in the intellectual, as 
absolute thought; in the spiritual, as 
absolute love. 

Is God invisible? There is nothing more 
apparent than God. God is Intelligence, 
and intelligence is seen in thought. 
Look for God in creation ; look for Him 

in yourself. 

— Hermes Trismegistus. 



TWtbat is <Bo&? 



Let each of your actions be an offering to 
that supreme Being within you; that 
Being who breathes in all beings; 'that 
Being of a hundred thousand forms; of 
innumerable eyes; of faces turned on 
every side and yet who surpasses them 
all by all the height of infinity ; who in 
his immovable and boundless body shuts 
up a moving universe with all its many 
divisions. Should a thousand suns 
lighten at one time the heaven, their 
glory would not resemble the glory of the 
All-Powerful within you. Seek Him not 
in the vertigoes of Infinitude, but in thy- 
self and in the human form. Behold the 
great secret ! 

— Bhagavad-Gita. 

Infinity and space only can comprehend 
infinity and space. God alone can com- 
prehend God. 

— Krishna's Sermon on Mount Merow 



8 answers of tbe Bges* 

Knowing about God is not knowing God. 
— Guani of Ceylon. 

He who knows God does not talk about 
Him. 

—Lao-Tsze. 600 B. C 

The key of the mind. 

—Orpheus. 

The thrice unknown darkness. 

— Old Egyptian Definition. 

God's nature is ineffable; His honor, 
greatness, loftiness, wisdom, power, good- 
ness, and grace transcend all human con- 
ceptions. If I call God light, I name but 
His image ; if I call Him Logos, I name 
His dominion; if reason, His insight; if 
spirit, His breath; if wisdom, His crea- 
tion ; if strength, His power ; if energy, 
His efficient agency; if prudence, His 
goodness; if dominion, His glory; if 



TKHbat is (SoD? 



Lord, then I term Him a judge; if a 
judge, then I pronounce Him just; if 
Father, then I say He is loving ; and if I 
call Him fire, I name thereby the anger 
which He cherishes against evil-doers. 

— Theophilus ofAntioch. 

What is it I love when I love my God? I 
have tried to grasp it in my own intelli- 
gence, but at the moment that I reach the 
seat of being, I cannot fix my gaze. 
What is it, then, that I love, O my God, 
when I love Thee? It is not beauty of 
bodies, nor the glory which passes, nor 
the light that our eyes love. It is not the 
harmony of song, nor the perfume of 
flowers, nor the joy of carnal embraces. 
No ; it is none of these that I love when I 
love my God ; and yet in this love I find a 
light, a voice, a savor that does not 
leave the innermost part of myself. Who 
shall understand, who shall express God? 



io answers of tbe Hges, 

It is something other than myself, there- 
fore I am frozen with terror ; it is some- 
thing identical with myself, therefore I 
am kindled with love. 

— St. Augustine. 

The unswerving Deity is called "The 
Silent One," or "The Mystic Silence"; 
"The Seven-tongued Flame," or "The 
Seven-flamed." 

— Phoenician Inscription. 

God is the synthesis of all First Principles. 

— Pascal 

The Being forever communicating His 
own essence. 

— St. Thomas Aquinas. 

God is the essential cause of all things, 
but not the efficient cause. 

— David ofDinant — 13th Century. 



Wbat fg Oo&? ii 

God is the ancient of the ancient ones. 
He is the eternal of the eternal ones, 
the concealed of the concealed ones. In 
His symbols is He both knowable and 
unknowable. White are His garments, 
and His appearance is the likeness of a 
face, vast and terrible. Vastness of 
countenance is His name — Macro-proso- 
pus. . . . 

The eyes of the Macro-prosopus are 
diverse from all other eyes; above the 
eye is no eyelid, neither is there an eye- 
brow over it. . . . This eye is pure in its 
whiteness ; so white that it includeth all 
whiteness. This eye is never closed; it 
is called The Open Eye— The Holy Eye— 
The Bountiful Eye — The Guardian Eye. 
This eye is ever smiling and is ever glad. 

— Kahbala. 

4 

Beyond all finite existences and secondary 
causes, all laws, ideas and principles, 



12 answers of tbe Hfles* 

there is an Intelligence or Mind, a Nous, 
a Spirit, a First Principle of all principles; 
the Supreme Idea on which all other 
ideas are grounded; the Monarch and 
Law-giver of the Universe ; the Ultimate 
Substance from which all things derive 
their Being and Essence; the First and 
Efficient Cause of all order, harmony and 
beauty, and excellence, and goodness. 
The supreme God — the God over all. 

—Plato. 

Before He gave any shape to the Uni- 
verse, before He produced any form, He 
was alone without form or resemblance 
to anything else. Who then can compre- 
hend Him, how He was before the 
creature, since He was formless? There- 
fore it was forbidden to represent Him, 
by any form, similitude or even by His 
sacred name ; by a single letter or by a 
single point — the En-Soph , — the No- 



Mbat is Oofr? 13 

thing, the Aged of the aged has a form by 
which the Universe is preserved and yet 
has no form because He cannot be com- 
prehended. When He first assumed a 
form He caused nine splendid lights to 
emanate from it. 

—Sober. 

God is the One only ; He who exists by 
essence ; the only One who lives in sub- 
stance. At the same time Father, Mother 
and Son. He engenders — He gives birth 
to — and He is, perpetually. . . . His 
attributes are Immensity, Eternity, Inde- 
pendence, Will all-powerful, Goodness 
without limit. 

— Maspero's Translation from Egyp- 
tian Hieroglyphics. 

All is Atman; it transcends experience; 
being not other, not distant, not without 



i4 answers of tbe ages. 



— unborn and undecaying, undying, im- 
mortal, secure, one and unique. Those 
immersed in objects of sense call Atman 
those objects; those thinking of the 
Devas call It The Deva; those knowing 
the Vedas describe It as the Veda; the 
knowers of the subtile call It the Subtile ; 
the knowers of the gross call It the Gross; 
those familiar with personality call It the 
Personal Being ; those having no faith in 
anything call It the pure Void ; knowers 
of Time think of It as Time ; the knowers 
of Space, Space ; those versed in logic and 
dispute call It the Problem; those cog- 
nizant of Mind call It Mind ; those whose 
ken is bounded by Heaven call It Heaven. 
They all describe the Atman as every- 
thing they like It to be. He who under- 
stands the truth in its fullness is at 
liberty to imagine the Atman of any form 
he likes. 

— Upanishads. 



TKHbat is 60ST 15 

God is the "I Am," or existence — the 
Primordial Point — the Smooth Point — the 
Inscrutable Height — the Vast Counte- 
nance. 

— Kabbala. 

The unwearying end of Divinity is to 
annihilate incurable passions and evils. 

— Solon. 

He is the emanating word. His wisdom 
and word embrace the bounds of the 
earth. 

—Plutarch. 

The Etruscans call Him Bacchus. 

The Egyptians think Him Osiris. 

The Greeks name Him Phanes. 

The Hindoos consider Him Dionysus. 

The Romans call Him Liber. 

The Arabians, Adonis. 

The Jews, Jehovah. 

— Ausonius. 



1 6 answers of tbe Hgeg, 

We know only what God is not. God is 
formless and nameless, although we 
rightly make use of the best names in 
designating Him; He is infinite; He is 
neither Genus nor difference, neither 
species nor individual, neither number 
nor accident, nor anything that can be 
predicated of another thing. Only the 
Son, who is the Power and Wisdom of the 
Father, is positively knowable. 

— St Clement of Alexandria. • 

Of the universal aeons there are two shoots 
without beginning or end, though spring- 
ing from one root which is the Power 
Invisible; Inapprehensible Silence. Of 
these shoots one is manifested from 
above, which is the great power, universal 
mind, ordering all things, male ; and the 
other is manifested from below, the great 
thought, female, producing all things. 
Hence they pair with each other, being 



Mbat is <3o&? 17 

one, for there is no difference between 
Power and Thought. 

— Simon Magus* Revelation. 

Sophia- Epinoia is a power of many names. 

She is called All- Mother. 

Mother of the Living. 

Shining Mother. 

Celestial Eve. 

Holy Spirit. 

Virgin Daughter of Light. 

Holy Dove. 

Revealer of Perfect Mysteries. 

World Soul. 

— Gnostic Teaching. 

God is Helios, Horus, Osiris, Dionysus 
and Apollo ; the Dispenser of Seasons and 
Times, of winds and showers, handler of 
the reins of the dawn and star-spangled 
night. Lord of the stars and their shin- 
ing. 

— Delphic Oracle. 



Wtet is Aban? 



wabat ia m>an? 

The breath needed a form; the Fathers 

gave it. 

The breath needed a gross body; the 

earth moulded it. 

The breath needed the spirit of life ; the 

solar Lhas breathed it into its form. 

The breath needed a mirror of the body. 

44 We give it otir own," said the Dhyanis. 

The breath needed a vehicle of desires. 

"It has it," said the drainer of waters. 

The breath needed a mind to embrace the 

Universe. "We cannot give that," said 

the Fathers. 

"I never had it," said the spirit of the 

Earth. 

"The form would be consumed were I to 

give it mine,'* said the great Fire. 

— Archaic Hindoo Hymn. 



g2 Hnswerg ot tbe Mqzb* 

And He said, He, the Gods: We will 
make Adam, in-the-shadow-of-us. 
Adam is an Egyptian hieroglyphic enclos- 
ing three meanings : 

i st. The human race, the man formed 
abstractively by the assemblage of all 
men, universal man. 

2d. It is the sign of an aggregation of 
homogeneous and indestructible parts. 
3d. Note that when Moses speaks of God 
he makes the noun plural and the verb 
singular; when he speaks of Adam (the 
shadow of God) he makes the noun singu- 
lar and uses a plural verb. The hiero- 
glyphic root of the word Adam is 
compounded of the sign of unity with the 
sign of divisibility or the development of 
progressive power to Infinity. It is the 
Egyptian numeral 10 carried to illimit- 
able power by means of a collective sign. 

—Fabre d* Olivet's First Ten Chapters 
of Genesis. 



Mbat ie /iDan? 23 

In the eternal day, before the days were, 
the Almighty created Free-will in the two 
great spirits Ormuzd and Ahriman. And 
these two came before the throne of the 
Almighty and spoke to Him, saying: 
"Thou hast shown Thyself of Almighti- 
ness to make lis free; now, therefore, to 
be free is to act: how should we be idle?" 
And the Lord said to them: "The ele- 
ments are in your hands. ' ' 
And they answered and said: "We will 
make the world.' ' 

And the Lord said: "One of you is dark 
and one of you bright, and ye will con- 
tend each against each, and your work 
will be evil. Ormuzd will put pleasure 
into that which he does, and Ahriman 
will put pain. " 

And Ahriman said: "The pain will over- 
bear the pleasure. ' ' 

And the Lord said to Ahriman: "Why 
dost thou work against Ormuzd?" 



2 4 Bnswetg of tbe Uqcs. 

And Ahriman said : "I know not; Thou 

hast made me." 

And the Lord said: "I know why I have 

made thee, but thou knowest not. ' ' 

And the two went forth from the Lord 

and made the world. 

— Tennyson. 

This body is without intelligence like a 
cart ; by whom has this body been made 
intelligent, and who is the driver of it? 
He who is standing above, passionless 
amidst the objects of the world; endless, 
imperishable, unborn and independent ; it 
is Brahma that has made this body intelli- 
gent and is the driver of it. 
How could Brahma be moved to do this? 
Prazapati stood alone, in the beginning; 
he had no happiness when alone, and 
meditating upon himself he created 
many creatures. He looked upon them 
and saw that they were like stone and he 



Mbat is /flftan? 25 

entered into them that they might awake. 
He who is in the fire and he who is in the 
heat and he who is in the sun are all one 
and the same. 

— Upanishads. 

There are seven worlds ; one empyrean is 
first ; after this three ethereal and three 
material, the last of which is the ter- 
restrial and contains matter, and is called 
"The Hater of Life." 

— Old Chaldaic Doctrine. 

As Brahma is to the world, its eternal 
and omnipresent cause, so is the self to 
the ego. 

— Vedanta. 

As is God, so is the Universe. As is the 
Creator the supernal man, so is the created 
the inferior man — as macrocosm, so mi- 
crocosm — as eternity, so life. 

— Kabbala. 



26 answers of tbe ages. 

Material evolution represents the mani- 
festation of God in matter; spiritual evo- 
lution represents the elaboration of 
conscience in the individual and his 
attempt to reunite with the Divine Spirit 
from which he emanated. Material evo- 
lution conducts insensibly to spiritual 
evolution, and passes from the without to 

the within, 

— Doctrine of Pythagoras. 

Man reduced to his ultimate or simplest 
existence is a divine thought; reduce 
yourself to that simplicity or root-exist- 
ence, and you are in God. 

— Eckhardt 

Lift thy head, O disciple ; dost thou see 
one or many lights above thee burning in 
the midnight sky? 

I perceive one flame, O Master; I see 
countless undetached sparks shining in it. 



Wbat ig /Pan? 27 

Thou sayest well ; and now look around 
and into thyself ; that light which burns 
inside thee, dost thou feel it different in 
any wise from the light that shines in thy 
brother man? 

It is in no wise different, though the outer 
garments delude the ignorant into saying 
"thy soul" and "my soul." 

— Buddhist Catechism. 

All things are generated from one fire; 
and this fire was at first intellectual : for 
the first creation was of mind and not of 
works. 

— Zoroaster. 

The imperishable Ashvatta tree is with 
root above and branches below, and the 
sacred hymns are the leaves thereof: who 
knows this is a knower of knowledge. 
Upwards and downwards tend its 
branches, expanded by the potencies. 



28 Hnswers of tbe Eges* 

The sense-objects are its sprouts. Down- 
wards, too, the roots are stretched, con- 
straining to action in the world of men, 
where neither its form is comprehended, 
nor its end, nor its beginning, nor its sup- 
port. Having cut with the firm sword of 
detachment this Ashvatta tree, with its 
overgrown roots, then should the disciple 
search out that supreme whither they who 
come never return again, for now is he 
come to that Primal Being, whence the 
evolution of old was emanated. 

— Bhaga vad- Git a . 



The Heaven is my Father — my family is 
all the celestial environment. My 
Mother is the great earth ; for the Father 
fructifies the bosom of her who is both 
His wife and His sister. 

— Vedic Hymn. 



Mbat is flDan? 29 

The world is made not only by God, but 
of God. Look at the spider who with the 
utmost intelligence draws the thread of its 
wonderful net out of its own body. 

— Upanishads. 

Nature is an organism in which all things 
harmonize and sympathize with each 
other; one influence, one breath, one 
harmony, one tune, one metal, one fruit. 

— Paracelsus. 

The breath becomes a stone ; the stone, a 
plant; the plant, an animal; the animal, 
a man; the man, a spirit; the spirit, a 
god : each entity must have won for itself 
the right of becoming divine through self- 
experience. 

— Kabbalistic Teaching. 

The created human spirit, having turned 
away from the fullness of the divine life, 



3° answers of tbe Uqcs 

was placed in a material environment, 

but is free to choose between the good 

and the bad. ^ . 

— Origen. 

As souls fall from sphere to sphere, they 
are clothed with a heavier and heavier 
envelope. In each life they acquire a 
new corporeal sense and their vital energy 
increases, but as their bodies grow more 
dense they lose more and more the 
memory of celestial origin. This is the 
Pall of Man — more and more the slave of 
matter, more and more intoxicated by 
life, the deeper they plunge into the 
regions of sorrow, of love, of death. 

—Hermes Trismegistus. 

Man's nature is septenary: 
. I. The Ineffable. V. Soul (Psyche). 
II. Being. VI. Nature. 

III. Life. VII. Body. 

IV. Intellect. -Proclus. 



TOUbat is flftan? 31 

The great septenary which embraces the 
universe, vibrates not only in the seven 
colors of the rainbow, in the seven notes 
of the gamut ; it also manifests itself in 
the constitution of man, who is triple by 
essence, but septuple by his evolution. 
The septenary constitution of man is found 
thus in the Kabbala : 
Material body. 
Vital force. 
Astral body. 
Animal soul. 
Rational soul. 
Spiritual soul. 
Divine spirit. 

— Schurre. 

Listen to the lyre of seven strings — the 
lyre of God — it vibrates within you. 

— Orphic Fragment 



TKRbat is flDeant bg tbe ZvtniW 



TKabat ia fl&eant by the trinity? 

The old is the new and the new is the old. 
The Father is in the Son and the Son is in 
the Father. Unity is divided into three 

and Trinity is reunited in unity. 

—Plato. 

The number III. reigns in all parts of the 
Universe, and the I. is its principle. 

— Zoroaster. 

The monad, I. , represents the essence of 
God. 

The dyad, II., His generative and repro- 
ductive faculty. 

The triad, III., or law of the ternary, is 
the constitutive law of things and the true 
key of life. 

— Pythagoras. 

35 



36 answers of tbe Hges+ 

All things are supplied from the bosom of 
the triad; know ye that all things bow 
before the three supernal. 

— Damasius. 

In each world shineth forth the Triad, 
over which the monad or spirit ruleth; 
hence the same law of the triune is 
imposed upon man. 

— Chaldaic Oracle. 

God is threefold. 
Brahma — the Unfolder. 
Vishnu — the Pervader. 
Siva — the Powerful. - 

— Hindoo Trinity. 

The microcosm, man, is by his nature 
ternary, spirit — soul — body ; the image and 
the mirror of the macrocosm — universe — 
the divine, human, and natural world, 
which is itself the organ of ineffable God, 
of absolute spirit, — which is by its nature 



Mbat is meant bs tbe TErinftg? 37 

Father, Mother, Son, — Essence, Substance 
and Life. Therefore man, the image of 
God, can become His living word. 

— Schurre. 

He who is incessantly creating the uni- 
verse is triple. He is Brahma, the 
Father; He is Maja, the Mother; He is 
Vishnu, the Son, — essence, substance and 
life. Each encloses the other two, and 
all three are one in the ineffable. 

— Upanishads. 

God the Father — Nara — the eternal 
masculine; God the Mother — Nari — the 
eternal feminine ; God the Son — Viradi — 
the creating word or the intellectual prin- 
ciple. Corresponding to these is Brahma, 
the spirit, the divine world, Siva, the 
body, the natural world, and Vishnu, the 
soul, the human world. This is the 



3* answers of tbe Mqcs. 

double Trinity, — the Trinity of God and 
the Trinity of the Universe. 

— Indian Purana. 

What are the three things said to be 
contemporaneous in the dawning soul? 
God, Light, Liberty. 

— Druidic Triad. 

When man has attained the highest spirit- 
ual reach, God has brought forth His Son 

— evolved His holy spirit. 

— Eckhardt. 

The ternary human and the divine monad 
constitute the sacred tetrad. 
Man does not realize his own unity 
except in a relative manner, for his will 
which acts on all his being cannot, how- 
ever, act simultaneously and fully on his 
three organs; that is, on soul, intellect, 
and instinct. So the Universe and God 
himself appear to man successively and 



TKHbat is ZlDeant bs tbe XTrinftg? 39 

by turns reflected in these three mirrors. 
First, seen through instinct and the 
kaleidoscope of the senses, God is multiple 
and infinite as are His manifestations; 
from this springs polytheism, where the 
number of gods is not limited. 
Second, seen through the intellect, God 
is double, that is, spirit and matter ; from 
this springs dualism as we find it in 
Zoroaster and the Manichaeans. 
Third, seen through the soul, God is 
triple, that is, spirit, soul and body in all 
the manifestations of the universe. From 
this spring the trinitarian religions; the 
Brahmanic and Christian. 
Fourth, conceived by the will, which 
collects the whole, God is one. Here is 
Hermetic monotheism as taught by 
Moses. Here there is no more personifi- 
cation, no more incarnation. We are 
above the visible and have entered into 
the absolute. — Schurre. 



4Q answers of tbe Uqcs. 

Man is triple like the divinity he reflects 
— intelligence, sonl and body. If the soul 
unites itself to the intelligence, it attains 
to wisdom and peace ; if the soul dwells 
uncertain between intelligence and body, 
it is dominated by passion and moves in a 
fatal circle ; if the soul abandons herself 
to the body she falls into unreason and 
temporary death. 

— Bhagavad-Gita. 

The essential principles are in the four 
first numbers. The infinite varieties of 
beings which compose the universe are 
produced by the combinations of the 
three primordial forces, Matter, Soul, 
Spirit. Seven is composed of three and 
four, the triad and the tetrad, man and 
God. Seven represents a law of evolu- 
tion. Ten is the addition of the monad, 
dyad, triad, and tetrad, and is the perfect 
number by excellence, for it represents 



Wbat is /IDeant bs tbe Urinitg? 41. 

all the principles of divinity evolved and 
reunited in a new unity which is the 
sacred decade. 

— Pythagoras 9 Doctrine of Numbers. 

The Trinity is always completed by and 
finds its realization in the quaternary. 

— Kabbala. 



Wbat is Soul? 



Mbat ia Soul? 

The soul — a vast capacity for God. 

Our life is God's life in us. 

— Duns Scotus. 

The soul may be defined as an individual 
that, feeling, acts. 

— Rosmini. 

Our souls are paths on which we travel to 
come to God ; for they have of old come 
forth from Him. 

— Pistis Sophia. 

Soul is a continuous entity which was in 
existence before, and remains in exist- 
ence after this physical life. 

— Sinnett's Growth of the Soul 



46 answers of tbe ages* 

Your own soul is omniscient; you have 
only to get into union with it to share its 
knowledge. 

— Hindoo Saying. 

What is increate abides in thee. 

— Voice of the Silence. 

What is intuition? What thy soul know- 
eth of old in other lives. It is inborn 
experience. 

— Buddhist Teaching. 

The one divine eye of the soul is better 
worth training than ten thousand cor- 
poreal eyes. 

—Plato. 

Thou bearest within thyself a sublime 
soul that thou dost not know; for God 
resides in the interior of every man, but 
few know how to find Him. 

— Bhagavad-Gita. 



TOlbat is Som? 47 

The fourth spirit which strives in a man 
is the highest of all — the uncreate, the 
godlike spirit. It is a pure manifestation 
of divine truth which raises the natural 
man above sense, self, visions and powers, 
and lands him in the Divine Presence. 

—Tauler. 

Spirit is the only reality; matter is but 
the inferior, changing, ephemeral expres- 
sion of spirit, its dynamics in space and 
time. 

— Schurre. 

We know more of mind than we do of 
body. The immaterial world is a firmer 
reality than the material. 

— Huxley. 

Nature is the infinite illusion of our 
senses. Spirit alone is unchangeable, 
that alone is no illusion. 

— Schopenhauer. 



48 answers of tfoe Bges, 

Matter is the vehicle for the manifestation 
of soul on this plane of existence, and soul 
is the vehicle, on a higher plane, of the 
manifestation of spirit, and these three 
are a trinity synchronized by life which 
pervades them all. 

— Brahmanic Doctrine. 



In like manner as God created the world 
in six days and rested on the seventh, so 
the soul by six successive illuminations 
reaches the repose of divine contempla- 
tion. Thus the soul has six potentialities 
— the senses, the instinct, the imagina- 
tion, intellect, intelligence and spirit. 
These faculties formed in us by nature, 
deformed by sin, reformed by grace, must 
be purified by justice, trained by science, 
and perfected by wisdom. 

— St Bonaventura. 



TOlbat is Soul? 49 

What is thy mystery, O Psyche? 

I am not of this world, and I go else- 

where-tmt where? -Pythagoras 

The celestial history of the Psyche as 
taught by Pythagoras is that in order to 
become what she is in actual humanity it 
is necessary that she shall have traveled 
all the kingdoms of nature, to have scaled 
the ladder of being by a series of innu- 
merable existences. She has been blind 
and indistinct force in the mineral — indi- 
vidualized in the plant — polarized in the 
sensibility and instinct of animals, — has 
tended toward the conscious world in this 
slow elaboration. As the monad mounts 
the series of organisms, polarized force be- 
comes sensible; sensibility becomes in- 
stinct; instinct becomes intelligence, and 
the soul grows more independent of the 
body, more capable of leading a free ex- 
istence. 



5° answers of tbe Hges» 

The names for soul have been collected 
from civilized and uncivilized races of 
man. Some of these names mean 
"breath," some "heart," "blood," "the 
pupil of the eye. ' ' Some races have called 
the soul a bird "caged in the body" and 
"winged for flight." Some have called 
it the "shadow of the body" because it is 
something perceptible, but immaterial 
and not to be grasped. The Greeks called 
it * ' Psyche, ' ' butterfly, because the butter- 
fly emerges winged from its chrysalis. 
One tribe has called the soul "perfume." 
"Is not a man's soul," they say, "what 
the fragrance is to the flower?" Plato 
said the soul was like harmonious music 
drawn from the lyre we call body. 
All peoples have had a name for soul, and 
it has always been something different 
from the body but closely allied to it and 
hard at work in it. 

— Max Mutter. 



m\mt is SouH 5* 

The soul is a veiled light; this light is 
triple, its three parts are: 
Pure Spirit. 
Intellect. 
Plastic Mediator. 

The plastic mediator is immortal by re- 
newal of itself through the destruction of 
forms. The intellect is immortal through 
the evolution of ideas. 
Pure spirit is immortal without forgetful- 
ness and without destruction. 

— Kabbala. 

Spirit is independent of matter in its 
essence, but defective in being dependent 
on matter for its perfection. 

— Persian Desatir. 

If the soul feels itself, it is in its essence 
feeling, since it is only feeling that is felt 
by itself (per se) ; and if bodies are felt by 



52 Hnswerg ot tbe ages. 

the soul and the soul is felt by itself, the 
soul is the principle of feeling. 

— Rostninl 

The intellect is developed only for earthly 
things and by earthly things. 

— Du Prel 

Nothing is superior to the human mind 
save Him alone who made it. 

— St Bonaventura. 

The human soul, the individuality, is im- 
mortal by its essence. Its development 
takes place in a descending and ascending 
scale by alternate existences, spiritual and 
corporeal. Reincarnation is the law of the 
souVs evolution. Perfection reached, it 
escapes from reincarnation and returns 
to spirit, to God in the plenitude of its 
consciousness. 

— Schurre. 



Wbat is Soul? 53 

Seek that which touches the soul ; all is 
in that, for it is that which we are. . . . 
There is another thing than mind, and it 
is not mind that allies us to the universe. 
It is time that we ceased to confuse mind 
with soul. . . . There are in man many 
more fruitful, more profound, more inter- 
esting regions than those of reason and 
intelligence. 

— Maeterlinck. 

The soul aspires to the spirit, and the 
spirit takes thought for the soul. 

— Gnostic Saying. 

The intellective soul of man, therefore, 
originally sprang from the womb of the 
sensitive soul and was a virtue of it ; but 
this virtue became the principal act and 
acquired immortality as soon as it rose to 



54 Hngwers of tbe Bges, 

universal being, because this is altogether 
imperishable, unmodifiable and eternal. 

— Cardinal Rosminl 

The two most important properties of soul 
are simplicity and immortality. 

— Rosmini. 

Will is the essence of personality. 
The first act of the human soul is intelli- 
gence, and intelligence is made for truth. 
The second act is will, and will is made 
for virtue. 

The third act is the will's adherence to the 
truth, or the soul's loving all things ac- 
cording to their truth. 
The soul naturally tends to its own per- 
fection. The perfection of soul consists 
in the full vision of truth, the full exercise 
of virtue, and the full attainment of 
happiness. 

— Rosmini. 



TOat fg som? 55 

Since we are not bodies, but souls resident 
in bodies and capable of dwelling in them 
in such a manner as to approximate very 
nearly to the mode in which the soul of 
the universe inhabits the whole body of 
the world. This, however, consists in 
being free from impulsion, in not yielding 
to externally-acceding pleasures or visible 
objects and in not being disturbed at any 
severe occurrence. 

— Plotinus. 



TOlbat is IRigbt %Mt\Ql 



TClbat 10 IRigbt Hiving? 

Liberty and Duty are inseparable terms. 
If I ought, I can. 

— Kant 

Disciple: The cloak of darkness is upon 
the deep of matter; within its folds I 
struggle. A shadow moveth, creeping 
like the stretching serpent's coils. 
Master : It is the shadow of thyself outside 
the Path, cast in the darkness of thy sins. 

— Voice of the Silence. 

In order to comprehend moral things we 
must see them done not only under our 
eyes, but in ourselves. The ego compre- 
hends only what it produces. 

— Recejac. 

59 



60 Hnswers of tbe Bges. 

On what is the whole of morality based? 
To live nobly and rightly in these five 
relations of life 
Sovereign and Subject. 
Parent and Child. 
Husband and Wife. 
Elder and Younger. 
Brother and Brother. 
Friend and Friend. 

To each of these belongs appropriate con- 
duct. For a universal love of mankind 
without distinction of persons gives more 
to him to whom less is due and less to 
him to whom more is due. 

— Confucius 1 Law of Life. 

Courage and bravery are words of a great 
sound and seem to signify an heroic 
spirit; but yet humility, which seems to 
be the lowest, meanest part of devotion, is 
a more certain argument of a noble and 
courageous mind. Humility contends 



HClbat is TRiQbt XivnttQ? 61 

with greater enemies, is more constantly 
engaged, more violently assaulted, bears 
more, suffers more, and requires greater 
courage to support itself than any instance 
of worldly bravery. 

— Law's Serious Call to a Devout 
Life. 1690. 

Every action is right, which in presence 
of a lower principle follows a higher ; 
every action is wrong, which in presence 
of a higher principle follows a lower. 

— Martineau. 

The work of initiation is to render oneself 
as like to God as possible, as unlike to 
matter as possible by becoming as active 
as He and not as passive as It. 

—Pythagoras. 

The best perfection of a religious man is 
to do common things in a perfect way. A 



62 Hnswers of tbe Sfleg, 

constant fidelity in small things is a great 
and heroic virtue. 

— Bonaventura. 

Those who are humiliated and yet do not 
humiliate ; those who hear themselves put 
to scorn and yet answer not ; those who do 
all for love and accept their afflictions 
with joy, of them the scripture speaks 
when it says, "The friends of God shine 
as a sun in His splendor/ ' 

— Talmud. 

What are the three "das" which must be 
fulfilled before any higher life can be 
hoped for? 

Damyatta — Subdue yourselves, subdue 
the passions of the senses, subdue pride, 
subdue self-will. 

Datta — Give of your goods, give of your- 
self, be liberal, be charitable. 
Dayadhoam — Give pity to all who de- 



TPKbat is TRtflbt %ivir\Ql 6 3 

serve pity, be compassionate, be merci- 
ful. 

— Vedanta. 

If thou seekest fame, or ease, or pleasure, 
or aught for thyself, the image of that 
thing thou seekest will come and cling to 
thee and thou wilt have to carry it about ; 
and the images and powers which thou hast 
thus invoked will gather and form a new 
body, clamoring for sustenance and satis- 
faction. And if thou art not able to dis- 
card this image now thou wilt not be able 
to discard that body then, but wilt have to 
carry it about. Beware then lest it 
become thy grave and thy prison instead 
of thy winged abode and palace of joy. 

— Edward Carpenter. 

By oneself the evil is done ; by oneself one 
suffers ; by oneself evil is left undone ; by 
oneself one is purified ; purity and impur- 



H answers of tbe ages, 

ity belong to oneself; no one can purify 
another. 

— Dhamma-pada. 

To wait upon God and keep silent is a 
great, nay the greatest of all works. 

— St. Bernard. 

If thou wish to convince thy brother of thy 
sincerity, come to his rescue when he has 
no one to stand by him. If thou fail to do 
this, then dost thou neglect the example 
of thy Lord. 

—Tauler. 

Now I will teach thee the way of peace 

and true liberty. . . . 

... Be desirous to do the will of another 

rather than thine own. 

Choose always to have less rather than 

more. 

Seek always the lowest place and to be 

beneath every one. 



XPSlbat is TRtgbt Xtvtng? 65 

Wish always and pray that the will of God 
be fulfilled in thee. 

— A Kempis. 

Renounce the whole world and all the 
matter therein. He who liveth in his 
own cares and in his own associations 
amasses ever fresh matter, for the associ- 
ations of this world are exceedingly 
material and ever add fresh matter to that 
matter which is already in you. 
Renounce murmuring, that ye be worthy 
of the mysteries of Light. 
Renounce boasting . . . renounce garrul- 
ity .. . renounce pitilessness ... re- 
nounce all ignorance . . . renounce 
atheism, that ye escape the frost and hail 
of outer darkness. Be ye loving, be ye 
gentle, be ye merciful, be ye righteous, 
for these are the boundary marks of the 
paths of them that are worthy. 

— Pistis Sophia. 



66 answers ot tbe Ugcs. 

The higher self can alone redeem the per- 
sonality from sin and suffering by a cruci- 
fixion of the desires and tendencies — that 
is, by subduing the lower self, thus wak- 
ing consciousness to the Christ within us, 
the higher self. 

—SitmetVs Growth of the Soul 

When the knowledge of God is lost, it is 
replaced in the world by virtue ; when the 
knowledge of virtue is lost, men replace it 
by benevolence; when the knowledge of 
benevolence is lost, men replace it by 
integrity; when the knowledge of integ- 
rity is lost, men replace it by propriety, 
which is ever only the counterfeit of sin- 
cerity and truth. 

—Lao-Tsze. 600 B. C. 

At most times an act is neither good nor 
bad ; all depends on the spirit in which it 
is accomplished. _^ 



TKIlbat is TRtQbt Xtvtng? 67 

Will, when strength fails, has duties 
stilL -Kant. 



Bear your cross; never drag it. 

—St. Theresa. 

Act from a maxim at all times fit for law 
universal. 

— Kant 

There are three steps in the science of 
Christian perfection, which is in other 
terms called mysticism. The first step is 
to live the purgative life, the second is the 
illuminative life, the last is the unitive life 
which joins the soul to God — to uncreated 
Good. These three phases of ascetic 
existence are again subdivided into innu- 
merable steps, — St. Bonaventura calls 
them "ladders," St. Theresa calls them 
" dwellings/ ' St. Angelo, "stairs." They 
vary in length and number with the tern- 



68 answers of tbe ages* 

perament of those who pass over them. 
This itinerary of the soul toward God is at 
first over steep and break-neck paths, 
through thickets and over precipices— these 
are the roads of the purgative life. Next 
come narrow paths, moving up by easy 
and accessible terraces and slopes, and 
these are the roads of the illuminative 
life. At last a wide and level space 
rather than a road, over which, when the 
soul has passed, it loses itself in eternal 
love and accomplishes the unitive life — 
the death of the ego and the life of God. 

— Huysmans. 

A man of true self-abandonment must be 
unbuilt from the creature, inbuilt with 
Christ, and overbuilt by the Godhead. 

— Suso. 14th Century. 

By what did Pythagoras recognize the un- 
apparent manners of the soul? 



Mbat is TRtgbt Xivfnfl? 6 9 

I. By seasonable or unseasonable laugh- 
ter, and by seasonable or unseasonable 
silence or speech. 

II. By the manner of spending leisure 
time. 

III. Whether a man held his opinions 
modestly. 

IV. Whether he could follow philosophic 
teaching with rapidity and perspicuity. 

V. Whether he was temperate and gentle 
in all he said. 

VI. Whether he walked in unfrequented 
paths. 

VII. Whether he sacrificed and adored, 
unshod. 



A life without examination is not worth 
living. 

— Apology of Socrates. 

Learn to ascend into thyself. 

— Porphyry. 



7Q answers of tbe Sges» 

And the Jews came to the holy Issa ask- 
ing: 

Where shall we worship and praise otir 
heavenly Father, seeing our enemies have 
razed our temple to the ground and carried 
away our sacred vessels? 
And the holy Issa made answer : 
The human heart is the true temple of 
God ; enter ye into your temples and illu- 
mine them with good thoughts. Your 
sacred vessels — they are your hands and 
your eyes; do I see that which is agree- 
able to God, doing good to your neighbor, 
but first embellish wherein dwells He who 
gave you life. 

— Legend of Holy Issa. Translated 
from a Thibetan Manuscript 

Let thy mind follow after God, and let thy 
soul follow thy mind, and let the body be 
subservient to the soul. As far as may 



Mbat i0 TRfQbt Xiving? n 

be, the pure body serving the pure soul ; 
for when the body is defiled by the emo- 
tions of the soul the defilement reacts on 
the soul itself. 

— Porphyry. 

To know what exists really one must cul- 
tivate silence with oneself. For it is in 
silence that the eternal and unexpected 
flowers open which change their form and 
color according to the soul in which they 
grow. Souls are weighed in silence as 
gold and silver are weighed in pure 
water. 

— Maeterlinck. 

Through intelligence one reaches many 
things which are superior to intelligence , 
but intuitions come better by the quies- 
cence of thought than by thought itself. 

— Porphyry. 



72 answers of tbe Bges* 

Thou shalt not let thy senses make a 
playground of thy mind. 

— Voice of the Silence. 

Ye are as holy as ye will to be holy. 

— Ruysbroeck. 

God Himself has nothing more sacred 
than the laws of holiness and moral per- 
fection. 

— Recejac. 

The Brahmin's rule of conduct is that 
death or destruction of the "I" has been 
and always will be the price which we 
must pay in order to attain to God. Call 
it renunciation, call it stoicism, call it 
detachment, call it death, the fact is the 
same that only he who dies to himself 
finds God. 

— Mozumdar. 



Wbat is TRfgbt Xtvtng? 73 

There are three primal steps before a 
human being can realize unusual powers. 
First, the hushing of the objective mind 
or control of the sense realm ; second, the 
banishing from the mind of the conscious- 
ness of sex; „third, the training of the 
will. 

The Disciple: Shall I be permitted one 
day to breathe the odor of the rose of Isis 
and see the light of Osiris? 
The Priests: That depends not on us. 
The truth is not given ; one finds it oneself 
or one finds it never. We can not make 
you an adept ; you must become it your- 
self. The lotus grows beneath the Nile 
a long time before it blooms. We can 
not hasten the blossoming of the divine 
flower; if it should come, it will come. 
Work and pray. 

— Egyptian Hieroglyphic Writing. 



74 answers of tbe Bges, 

Know thyself and thou shalt know God — 
the universe and the gods. 

— Transcription over the Temple at 
Delphi. 600 B. C. 

Earth said to me : 

Fatality. 
Heaven said: 

Providence. 
Humanity said: 

Folly, sorrow, slavery. 

The inward voice said: 

Liberty. 

— Pythagoras. 

To wait upon God and keep silent is a 
great, nay, the greatest of all works. 

— St Bernard. 

For the way we love what we believe to 

be a truth is of more importance than that 

truth itself. 

— Maeterlinck. 



Mbat is TRigbt Xiving? 75 

Learn to separate head-learning from 
soul-wisdom. 

— Voice of the Silence. 

Forsake all and thou shalt find all. Fore- 
go desire and thou shalt find rest ... in 
this short word is included all perfection. 

—A Kempis. 

All that we are is the result of what we 
have thought. It is founded on our 
thoughts ; it is made up of our thoughts. 

— Dhamma : pada. 

Our real destiny lies in our conception of 
life, in the final balance established be- 
tween the insoluble questions of heaven 
and the uncertain responses of the soul. 

— Maeterlinck. 

For I do nothing but go about persuading 
you, both young and old, not to let your 
first thought be for your bodies or your 



76 answers of tbe ages, 

possessions nor to care for anything so 
earnestly as for your soul that it may 
attain to the highest virtue ; and maintain- 
ing that not from possessions does virtue 
come, but that from virtue do possessions 
and all other good things, both private 
and public, come to man. 

— Apology of Socrates. 

There are four classes of virtues: 

The political or practical, pertaining to 

the gross body. 

The purifying virtues, pertaining to the 

subtle body. 

The intellectual or spiritual, pertaining to 

the causal body. 

The contemplative, to the supreme at-one- 

ment or union with God. 

— Porphyry. 

The organ of vision must first render itself 
analogous and like to the object that it 



Wbat is TRtQbt %ix>ir\Q> 77 

contemplates. The eye could never have 
perceived the sun if it had not first taken 
the form of the stm, nor can the soul 
know beauty till it becomes beautiful in 
itself. All men must begin by making 
themselves beautiful and divine in order 
to obtain a view of the beautiful and of 
divinity. 

— Plotinus. 



Unless Heaven be within a person, noth- 
ing of the heaven that is out of him can 
enter into him and be received. 

— Swedenborg. 



The self of matter and the self of 
spirit can never meet — one of the twain 
must disappear — there is no place for 
both, 

—Voice of the Silence. 



78 answers of tbe Mqcs. 

He to whom the eternal word speaketh is 
delivered from many an opinion. 

— A Kempis. 

Love is greater than work, knowledge or 

devotions, because it is its own end. Love 

is its own reward. 

— Narada Sutra. 

The quality of the life of every one is the 
same as the quality of his love. 

— Swedenborg. 

Disciples may be likened to the strings of 
the soul-echoing vina, mankind to its 
sounding board ; the hand that sweeps it 
is the tuneful breath of the great World- 
Soul. The string that fails to answer in 
harmony with all the others breaks and is 
cast away. Hast thou attuned thy being 
to humanity's great pain? 

— Voice of the Silence. 



TOlbat is TRiQbt Xivtng? 79 

Canst thou destroy divine compassion? 
Compassion is no attribute ; it is the law 
of laws, eternal harmony, Alaya's self, a 
shoreless, universal essence, the light of 
everlasting right and fitness of all things, 
the law of love eternal. 
The more thy soul unites with that which 
is % the more thou wilt become compassion 
absolute 

— Voice of the Silence. 

The right method of proceeding toward 
the doctrine of love is, beginning from 
beautiful objects here below, ever to be 
going up higher, mounting from the 
love of one fair person to the love of 
two, from the love of two to the love 
of all ; from the love of beautiful persons 
to the love of beautiful employments and 
next to the beautiful kinds of knowledge 
till it passes from degrees of knowledge to 
that knowledge which is the knowledge 



8o Hnswers of tbe Hges, 

of nothing else save Absolute Beauty 
itself, and knows that at length as it 
really is. 

—Plato. 

Hatred ceases by Love. 

Anger ceases by Love. 

The greedy are overcome by liberality. 

The liar, by truth. 

—Dhamma-pada. 

The evils that we do our neighbor pursue 

us as our shadows do our bodies. 

The works which have as their motive love 

of our kind are those that weigh most in 

the celestial balance. 

As the earth feeds and supports those 

who crush it under foot, so should we 

render good for evil. 

Fall before the blows of the wicked like 

the sandal tree that perfumes the axe that 

felled it. 



XKttbat is IRiQbt living? 81 

He only who is humble of mind and heart 
is loved of God, and he who is loved of 
God has need of no other thing. 

— Krishna's Lesson on Mount Merou. 



The love to which all celestial loves refer 
is love of God. The love to which all 
infernal loves refer is love of rule, 
grounded in love of self. These two are 
diametrically opposed. 

— Swedenborg. 

As a mother at the risk of her life watches 
over her only child, so also let every one 
cultivate a boundless friendship for all 
beings. Standing, walking, sitting or ly- 
ing, as long as one is awake let him devote 
himself to this mind. Living for others is 
the best in this world, 

— Matta Sutta. 



82 answers ot tbe ages. 

All ideas of duality, separateness or vari- 
ety prevent us from going toward the 
absolute. 

— Sankara. 

Unless Love and Wisdom invest and in- 
volve themselves in works and actions, 
they are only aerial things which pass and 
perish — they only become principles of 
life and remain with man when he does 
them. 

— Swedenborg. 

He who has realized the ethics of univer- 
sal unity, the essence of Love, has lost 
himself in the universe, in everything and 
all things. He breathes with the breath 
of nature, he sees with the eye of the All, 
he thinks with the thoughts of every 
being. He is the All. 

— Upanishads. 



Wbat is IRfQbt Xivinp? 83 

How small soever your lamp be, never 
give away the oil which feeds it but 
always the flame which crowns it. 

— Maeterlinck. 

Man's mind may be in spiritual light 
although his will is not in spiritual heat. 
Wisdom does not produce Love — it only 
shows the way. 

— Swedenborg. 

What distinguishes us from one another 
is our varying relations with infinity. 

— Maeterlinck. 

Whatever can be learnt without anguish 
belittles us. . . . 

This is a world where there are many 
things to do and few things to know. 

— Maeterlinck. 

Beware, my son, of self-incense. It is 
the most dangerous on account of its 



84 answers of tbe Uqcs. 

agreeable intoxication. Profit by thine 
own wisdom, but learn to respect the wis- 
dom of thy fathers also; learn, oh, my 
beloved, that the light of Allah's truth 
will often penetrate an empty head more 
easily than one too crammed with learn- 
ing. 
— Barrachus Hassan Aglu. An Arab 
Sage. 

Act always so that you treat ail humanity, 
whether in your own person, whether in 
the person of another, as an end and 
never as a means. 

—Kant. 



Wlbat is "Religion? 



Mbat 10 IRcIiaion? 

As the occult student advances he will 
find all the popular religions and concep- 
tions of Providence vindicated rather than 
refuted — vindicated not as regards their 
materialistic outlines, but as to their inner 
significance and idea. 

— Sinnett. 

Nothing is more legitimate than Faith, 
although the truths that it proclaims are 
absolutely undemonstrable. 

— Kant 

The highest spiritual truth is known only 
to him who has transcended every ascent 
of every holy height and has left behind 
all divine lights and sounds and heavenly 

87 



88 answers of the Hges* 

discoursings, and has passed into that 
darkness where God truly is. 

— Dionysus the Areopagite. 

Contemplation of the divine essence is the 
noblest exercise of man; it is the only- 
means of attaining to the highest truth 
and virtue. 

— Philo the Jew* 

Religious dogmas are only the dialectical 
development of symbols which have 
dawned in the souls of great mystics. 

— Recejac. 

The disciple said to the master: How 
may I attain to the heavenly life that I 
may see God and hear Him speak. 
The Master said: If thou couldst enter 
for a moment into that place where no 
creature dwelleth, there wouldst thou hear 
what God speaketh. 



Xfflbat is IReltQton? 8 9 

The disciple said : Is that place near or far? 
And the Master said : That is within thy- 
self ; and if thou couldst be silent for one 
hour from all thy speaking and all thy 
doing, then wouldst thou hear the un- 
speakable words of God. 

—Boehme. "The Way to Christ" 

How dost thou seek God? 

Think purely. 

Speak purely. 

Act purely. 
For excellence, worthiness, 
Beneficence, goodness, 
Must be comprehended. 
Must be comprehended. 
Must be comprehended. 

— Old Persian Liturgy. 

What being is to becoming, that is truth 
to faith. 

— Plato. 



90 answers of the Bges* 

True religion — is the essence of all doc- 
trines; the inner truth of all systems; 
creedless, nameless, untaught by priests, 
it is the spirit ; it is not found in temple or 
synagogue. It is the summing up of the 
wisdom of the Brahmin, the Buddhist, the 
Greek, the Jew and the Christian. 



Gnosis or rational mysticism from all 
time is and has been the art of finding 
God in oneself by developing the occult 
depths and latent faculties of conscience. 

— Schurre. 

Religion is a frame of mind, not a set of 

opinions. 

— Plato. 

The Supreme Spirit in one of the sacred 
books of the Hindoos says: "Even those 
who worship idols, worship me." 



TOlbat fg TReltQton? 91 

God helps man by grace, — that divine fire 
which the patriarchs waited for, which the 
prophets predicted, which Jesus Christ 
brought with Him, which Paul preached, 
which St. Augustine explained, which St. 
Bernard confirmed, which St. Thomas 
Aquinas sustained, which was maintained 
by Popes Clement and Paul and experi- 
enced by so many religious souls. 

— Pascal 

The cement which unites the soul with the 
spirit is love, and a strong love of the 
divine is, therefore, the highest good 
attainable by mortal man. 

— Paracelsus. 

Rama made known the road to the temple. 
Krishna and Hermes gave us the keys. 
Orpheus and Pythagoras showed us the 
inside, and Jesus Christ held up for us the 
Holy of Holies. 

— Schurrd. 



92 answers of tbe Bges, 

A high and sincere morality should be, 
without exception, sufficient to place the 
heart in contact with God. 

— Recejac. 

Fetishism, Magic, Gnosis, Theurgy, 
Asceticism, Alchemy, Ritualism, Spiritual- 
ism are the terrible degradations of mis- 
taken mysticism. 

— Recejac, 

A truly divine man has been so made one 
with God that henceforth he does not 
think of God, nor look for God outside 
himself. 

— Eckhardt. 

The true theme of all religion is not the 
future life, but the higher life. 

— Da Prel 

I believe there is in this universe a uni- 
versal providence, by virtue of which 
everything lives, vegetates and moves 



Mbat is IReliQion? 93 

and stands in perfection, and I tinder- 
stand it in two ways : one in the mode in 
which the whole soul is in the whole and 
every part of the body, and this I call 
Nature, the shadow and footprint of di- 
vinity; the other the ineffable mode in 
which God, by essence, presence and 
power, is in all and above all, not as part, 
not as soul, but in a mode inexplicable. 

— Giordano Bruno's Statement at His 
Trial. 

Superstition and materialism are the two 
great sources of evil on earth. These are 
the two thieves between which the Christ 
is crucified. Superstition is the distortion 
of spiritual perception ; materialism is the 
lack of spiritual perception. 

Never conceive progress as mere breadth ; 
true progress is always in depth. 

— Du Prel. 



94 answers of tbe ages* 

The first attribute of the occult aspirant 
is: 

I. Allegiance to the higher self. 

II. The aiming at spiritual exaltation, not 
for the sake of personal happiness, but as 
the means of elevating all humanity. 
Therefore, the second attribute is indiffer- 
ence to personal reward. 

To these two prime requisites are added 
six qualifications. 

I. Regulation of thought. 

II. Regulation of conduct. 

III. Profound tenderness and impartial- 
ity to all the great religions of the 
world. 

IV. Entire want of resentment for worldly 
wrong or ill usage. 

V. Steadfastness, or incapacity for being 
turned aside from the right path. 

VI. Confidence in the power to grasp the 

truth in all its vast complexity. 

— Sinnett. 



Wbat is TReliaion? 95 

Nothing but sorrow and degradation can 
follow from the materialization of divine 
mysteries. 

Wherever Religion decays and ignorance 
spreads herself, there the symbolical and 
allegorical are materialized into the his- 
torical and literal. 

The Paternal mind hath sowed symbols in 

the soul. 

— Chaldaic Oracle. 

The highest truth man e'er supplied, 
Is ever Fable on th' outside. 

— Browning. 

All visible things are emblems. Matter 

exists only spiritually to represent some 

idea and body it forth, 

— Carlyle. 



96 Hnswers of tbe ages, 

Some churches are saturated with ema- 
nations, teeming with angelical effluences 
— penetrated by divine salts, — such 
churches or holy places are for infirm 
souls what certain thermal stations are for 
the body ; one should make cures there — 
pass seasons — obtain blessings. 

— Huysmans. 

Mysticism is a tendency to arrive at con- 
sciousness of the absolute by means of 
symbols under the influence of love. 

— Recejac. 

The most difficult and most obscure of 

sacred books is Genesis — it contains as 

many secrets as words, nay, every word 

hides several secrets. , T 

— St Jerome. 

When it is said, Moses "covered his face 
with a veil," the meaning is he put the 
veil of allegory over his cosmogony and 



Mbat is TReliflion? 97 

that tinder this veil lies the mystic science 
of being. 

—Fabre d'Olivet. 

The fire on the altar always symbolizes 
Love. The turning toward the east 
always symbolizes Light. 

— Swedenborg. 

The without is as the within ; the little is 
as the great; there is only one law, and 
He who works is One. Nothing is little, 
nothing is great in the divine cosmogony. 

—Hermes Trismegistus. 



TKftbat is Ibeaven? 



• 



Wbat is Ibeaven? 

He that receiveth a lower mystery shall 
inherit a lower region, and he who re- 
ceiveth a higher mystery shall inherit the 
region of the heights. 

— Pistis Sophia. The Gnostic Gospel 



Heaven advances in perfection as its in- 
habitants increase in multitude — the 
greater its fullness, the greater its perfec- 
tion. 

—Swedenborg. 



The earth is crammed with Heaven 
And every common bush afire with God. 

— Browning. 

IOI 



iQ2 answers of tbe Mqcs* 

Joy is the tendency to unity ; sorrow is the 
division of the one. 

— St. Augustine. 

No sudden Heaven or sudden Hell for 

man, 
But through the will of one who knows and 

rules, 
Ionian evolution, swift or slow, 
Through all the spheres an ever-opening 

height, 
An ever-lessening earth. 

— Tennyson. 

In the depths of thine own soul thou wilt 
find a threefold heaven. The third 
heaven is only open to the eye of intelli- 
gence clarified by divine grace and a holy 
life. 

—Richard St. Victor. 

When Gautama found Nirvana, 
When Plato found the Logos, 



Mbat ig Tbeaven? 103 

When Lao-Tsze found Tao, 
When Jesus found the kingdom of heaven, 
they each found supreme good in their 
own souls. 



The ideal, under all its forms, is the 
anticipation, the prophetic vision of a 
higher existence than his own, to which 
each being aspires always. This higher 
existence in dignity is more interior in its 
nature, that is, more spiritual. . . . Thus 
the disciple of life, the chrysalis of an 
angel works through his ideal, his own fu- 
ture rebirth. The divine life is a series of 
successive deaths in which the spirit cuts 
off its imperfections and its symbols, and 
yields to the growing attraction of the 
center of ineffable gravitation — the sun 
of intelligence and love. 

— Amiel 



iQ4 answers of tbe Hfles* 

The heat and light of heaven are love and 
wisdom. 

— Swedenborg. 

He who finds in himself his happiness, his 
joy, and in himself also his light, is one 
with God. The soul which has found God 
is delivered from rebirth and from death, 
from old age and from sorrow, and drinks 
the water of immortality. 

— Bhaga vad-Gita. 

To be in itself alone, and not in being, is 
to be in God. . . . This, therefore, is the 
life of all gods and of divine and happy 
men, — liberation from all terrene con- 
cerns, a life unaccompanied with human 
pleasures and a flight of the alone to the 
Alone. 

— Plotinus. 



Tlfflbat is Tbeaven? 105 

In Heaven the will loves good and the 
understanding thinks truth. 

— Swedenborg. 

That the Heaven is in the earth, but after 
an earthly manner ; and that the earth is 
in the heaven, but after a heavenly man- 
ner. 

— Proclus. 

The soul has three habitations: 
The abyss of life. 
The inferior Eden. 
The superior Eden. 

— Kabbala. 

We call destiny all that limits us. . . . 
But the soul as it rises purifies destiny. 

— Maeterlinck. 

I sent my soul through the Invisible, 
Some letter of the after-life to spell. 



106 answers of tbe Haes* 

And bye and bye my soul returned to me 

And answered, "I, myself, am Heaven 

and Hell. ■ ' —Omar Khayatn. 

For death is not the end of all and the 
wicked is not released from his wicked- 
ness by death ; but every one carries with 
him into the world below that which he is 
and that which he becomes and that only. 

—Plato. 

Nature bound the body to the soul. The 
soul binds herself to the body. Nature 
liberates the body from the soul, but it is 
for the soul to liberate herself from the 
body. Hence there is a twofold or second 
death. 

—Orphic Hymn. 

Heaven is law and obedience. 

In the world of evil there is no unity. 

Evil spirits have no chief; no order; no 



XKabat is Ibeaven? 107 

organization; no solidarity; nothing that 
corresponds to law or obedience. 
Evil is ... a marring of nature and of 
the good, — a defect, a privation, a loss of 
good, an infraction of integrity, of beauty, 
of happiness, of virtue ; where there is no 
violation of good there is no evil. Evil, 
therefore, can only exist as an adjunct of 
good, and that not of the immutably but 
of the mutably good. An absolute good 
is possible, but an absolute evil is impos- 
sible. 

—St. Augustine. 

Selfishness abolished, there is no room in 
the nature for evil ; as soon as one is in- 
accessible to evil, capacity for infinite 
good, which embraces infinite knowledge, 
is established. 

— Sinnett. 

Now I seek to lead back the self within 
me to the All-self. 



Ib^mns. 



Behold the only object of music, it is also 
the object of mysticism — to return from 
the without to the within. 

— Bellaigue. 

Music at a single bound clears all the steps 
of being — it takes us from earth into the 
soul of man — and from that to God. 

— Bellaigue. 

What theatrical or mundane music, even 
the most vaunted, is of any worth when 
compared to the solemnities of the "Mag- 
nificat," the august verve of the "Lauda 
Sion," the enthusiasms of the "Salve 
Regina," the distresses of the "Miserere" 



112 answers ot tbe ages, 

and the "Stabat Mater," the omnipotent 
majesty of the "Te Deum' ' ? And yet the 
old plain song is superior to all, with its 
full and naked rhythm at once aerial and 
strong — that is the true music of solemn 
sadness and spiritual joy ; in the plain song 
is the grand faith of men — it seems to gush 
forth from ancient cathedrals like irre- 
sistible geysers, ample, sorrowful and ten- 
der. 

—Huysmans. 

The Fire-God, the First-born, supreme in 
Heaven, 

No father did he know. 

Oh, Fire-God, how were the seven be- 
gotten? 

How were they nurtured? 

These Seven, in the mountain of the sun- 
set were born. 

These Seven, in the mountain of the sun- 
rise, grew up. 



D^mns* 113 

From the sunset they galloped forth. 
In the sunrise they are bound to rest. 

— Babylonian Hymn. Translated 
from a Cuneiform Inscription. 

O, blind soul, 

Arm thee with the banner of mysteries, 

That in the earthly night, 

Thou mayst thy luminous double see — 

Thy soul celestial. 

Follow this god-like guide, 

He will thy leader be, 

And holds the key of all existences, 

Fore past, and yet to come. 

— Call to the Initiates from the Egyp- 
tian Book of the Dead. 

How they struggle in the immense uni- 
verse, 
How they whirl and seek ! 



n4 Hnswers of the Bqcs. 

Innumerable souls that all spirt forth 
From the vast world-soul. 
They drop from planet to planet, 
And in the abyss they weep — 
For their forgotten land. 
These are thy tears, O Dionysus, 
O, Spirit vast, Divine One, Liberator, 
Draw back thy daughters to the breast of 
Light. 

— Orphic Hymn. 



O, vital breath of angelhood, 
O, generous ministration of things good, 
Creator of the visible and best, 
Upholder of the great unmanifest, 
Power infinitely wise, new boon sublime, 
Of science and of art, constraining might, 
In whom I breathe, live, speak, rejoice 

and write, 
Be with us, in all places, for all time. 

— Phile. 



tngmna* 115 

The soul wherein God dwells, — 
What church could holier be? — 

Becomes a walking-tent 
Of heavenly majesty. 



How far from here to Heaven? 

Not very far, my friend. 
A single, hearty step 

Will all the journey end. 



Though Christ a thousand times 
In Bethlehem be born, 

If He's not born in thee, 
Thy soul is still forlorn. 



The cross on Golgotha 
Will never save thy soul, 

The cross in thine own heart 
Alone can make thee whole. 



n6 Hnswers of tbe Baes, 

Hold thou ! where rtmnest thou? 

Know heaven is in thee — 
Seek'st thou for God elsewhere, 

His face thou'lt never see. 

O, would thy heart but be 

A manger for His birth ; 
God would once more become 

A child upon the earth. 

Go out, God will go in. 

Die thou — and let Him live. 
Be not — and He will be. 

Wait and He'll all things give. 

O, shame, a silk-worm works 

And spins till it can fly, 
And thou, my soul, wilt still 

On thine old earth-clod lie? 

— A Mediaeval Hymn. 



I&smns, ii 7 

You ask how long your strife shall last? 

It lasts till all your life is past. 

Till, breaking peace and compromise, 

To sacrificial heights you rise, 

Until your will no more is weak, 

And all your coward doubtings fall, 

Before the message 

Naught or All ! 

And what the loss? Your idols broken, 

Your faint heart's feast-day keeping, gone ; 

Each golden chain, your slavery's token, 

All that your slackness slumbers on. 

And what the prize? A will new-born, 

A soul at one, a faith with wings, 

A sacrificial joy that flings 

Even to the grave — and not complains — 

On each man's brow a crown of thorns, 

Yes, these shall be your victory's gains. 

—Ibsen. 



lPragers. 



jpra^era, 

O, Lord! O, imperishable One! in what- 
ever thousands of births I may yet 
wander, may my undying love be always 
in Thee. 

— Vishnu Pur ana. 

For the reunion of the Holy One — Blessed 
be His name and His Shecinah!* I do 
this commandment in love and fear, in 
fear and love for the union of the name 
masculine with the name feminine into a 
perfect harmony. 

— Mystic Prayer of the Kabbalists. 

Thou art that Prakriti, infinite and subtile, 
who bore Brahma in thy bosom ; thou art 

* Shecinah is the name of the feminine half of 
Deity. 

121 



igg answers of tbe Hpes, 

the goddess of the word; the energy of 
the creator ; the mother of the Vedas ; O, 
thou eternal being, who comprehendest 
in thy substance the essence of all created 
things, thou wast identical with creation ; 
thou wast the sacrifice whence proceeded 
all that the earth produces ; thou art the 
wood which by rubbing engenders fire. 
. . . Thou art the light whence comes the 
day ; thou art humility whence comes true 
wisdom; thou art the policy of kings, 
mother of law and order; thou art the 
desire from which love springs; thou art 
the satisfaction which is derived from 
resignation ; thou art intelligence, mother 
of science; thou art patience, mother of 
courage ; all the firmament and stars are 
thy children ; it is from thee that proceeds 
all that exists. Thou art descended on 
earth for the salvation of the world. 
Have compassion, O goddess, thou who 
hast borne a God upon thy bosom ; show 



pragerg, 123 

thyself favorable to the universe ; sustain 
the world. 

— Vishnu Pur ana. Prayer to the 
Eternal Feminine. 

O, Isis, since my soul is only one tear 
from thine eyes, let it fall as dew upon 
other souls; and while I am dying for 
others, let the perfume of their watered 
souls mount to thee. Behold me, O, Isis, 
ready to be thus sacrificed. 

— Translated from Egyptian Hiero- 
glyphics. 

O, Osiris, teach me to contemplate the 
source of being ; teach me to know God ; 
show me the life of the universe — the road 
of souls, whence man comes and whither 
he returns. — Egyptian Hieroglyphics. 

Beloved Pan, and all ye other gods who 
haunt this place, give me beauty in the 
inward soul, and may the outward and in- 



i2 4 answers ot tfae Mqcs, 

ward man be at one. May I reckon the 
wise to be the wealthy, and may I have 
such a quantity of gold as none but the 
temperate can carry. 

— Socrates Prayer. 

O, ye children of Apollo, angelic hosts, 
who in time past have stilled the waves of 
sorrow for many people and have lighted 
up the lamp of safety before those who 
travel by sea and by land, be pleased in 
your great condescension to accept this 
prayer; order it aright, I pray you, ac- 
cording to your loving kindness to men, 
preserve me from sickness and endue my 
body with such a measure of health as 
may suffice it for the obeying of the spirit 
that I may pass my days unhindered and 
in quietness. 

—Aristides. Priest in the Temple of 
JEsculapius and Poet in Time of 
Marcus Aurelius. 



praters. 125 



In the name of God, the compassionate 
compassioner, Praise be to God, the Lord 
of the worlds, the compassionate compas- 
sioner, the sovereign of the day of judg- 
ment, thee do we worship and of thee do 
we beg assistance. Direct us in the right 
way, in the way of those to whom thou 
hast been gracious, on whom there is no 
wrath and who go not astray. 

— Seven petitions which make up the 
"Alfatiha" Lord's prayer of the 
Koran, repeated by the pious Mos- 
lems twenty times a day. 

O, thou great, incomprehensible God, who 
fillest all, be thou, indeed, my Heaven; 
let my spirit be the music and joy of thy 
spirit. Do thou make music in me, and I 
make harmony in the divine kingdom of 
thy joy, in the great love of God, in the 
wonders of thy glory and splendor, in 
the company of thy holy, angelic harmo- 



126 answers of tbe ages, 

nies. Build thou in me the holy city of 
Zion in which we all live as children of 
Christ in one city which is Christ — Christ 
in us. In thee I would lose myself 
utterly ; do with me as thou wilt. 

—Jacob Boehme. 

Forgive me my sins, O Lord, forgive me 
the sins of my youth and the sins of mine 
age, the sins of my soul and the sins of 
my body, my secret sins, my whispering 
sins, my presumptuous and my crying 
sins, the sins I have done to please myself, 
and the sins I have done to please others. 
Forgive me those sins that I know and 
those sins that I know not ; forgive them, 
O Lord, forgive them all of thy great 
goodness. Amen. 

—Prayer. 1560 A. D. 

Grant me, O . . . Jesus, to rest in Thee, 
above all creatures, above all health and 



praters. 127 

beauty, above all glory and honour, above 
all power and dignity, above all knowl- 
edge and subtilty, above all riches and 
arts, above all joy and gladness, above all 
fame and praise, above all sweetness and 
comfort, above all hope and promise, 
above all desert and desire, above all 
gifts and benefits that Thou canst give 
and impart unto us, above all mirth and 
joy that the mind of man can receive and 
feel ; finally, above angels and archangels, 
and above all the heavenly host, above all 
things visible and invisible, and above all 
that Thou art not, O, my God. 

— Thomas a Kempis. 



Visions. 



IDieiona, 

Mystic visions and voices are never to be 
understood in an objective sense. They 
must all be thought of as mental or inte- 
rior. 

— Recijac. 

If the mystic ecstasy is more beautiful 
than it is good, more enlightened than it is 
touched with emotion, more speculative 
than loving, let it be subject to great 
doubt and suspicion. 

— St. Francis de Sales. 

Only four have been fully initiated; only 
four have entered the garden of delights 
— occult or final science: Ben Asai, Ben 
Zorna, Acher and Rabbi Akiba. 
Ben Asai looked — and lost his sight. 
131 



i32 Hngwerg of tbe Bgeg> 

Ben Zorna looked — and lost his reason. 
Acher looked — and the whole became con- 
fusion and he failed. 

Akiba looked — and entered in peace and 
came out in peace. 

—Talmud. 

There are three kinds of contemplation, 
which have been called by three names. 
Job calls it "suspense," St. John 
"silence/' and Solomon "sleep/' There 
are three kinds of silence : the silence of 
the lips, the silence of the thought, and 
the silence of the reason. There are 
three kinds of sleep for the soul. Its 
reason sleeps because ignorant of the 
cause and of the end of beatific vision ; its 
memory sleeps because it is absorbed in 
the ineffable, it forgets what it has suf- 
ered ; its will sleeps because it does not 
know that it is experiencing delight. 

— Hugo St Victor. 



IDisions, i 33 



St. Francis, after long and tedious strug- 
gles with his earthly nature, prayed one 
day that he might be allowed a single 
foretaste of heaven ; straightway an angel 
appeared before the eye of his mind hold- 
ing a viol in his hand. He drew the bow 
across the strings and there issued forth 
one thrilling chord which lifted the poet- 
saint above the infirmities of his body. 
"Draw thy bow but once again," cried 
the enraptured St. Francis, "and my 
soul will burst her bonds and follow 
sound.' ' 



I assert for myself that I do not behold 
the outward creation, and that to me it is 
hindrance and not action. "What!" it 
will be questioned, "when the sun rises, 
do you not see a round disc of fire larger 
than a guinea?" O, no, no. I see an in- 
numerable company of the heavenly host 



i34 answers of tbe a<jes. 

crying, Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God 
Almighty. I question not my corporal 
eye any more than I would question a 
window concerning a sight. I look 
through it, not with it. 

— Blake. 

A kind of waking trance I have often had 
quite up from boyhood when I have been 
all alone. This has come upon me through 
repeating my own name, two or three 
times to myself silently, till all at once, as 
it were, out of the consciousness of indi- 
viduality, individuality itself seemed to 
dissolve and fade away into boundless 
being, and this not in a confused state, 
but the clearest of the clear, the surest of 
the sure, the weirdest of the weird, utterly 
beyond words, — when death seemed im- 
possible — the loss of personality seemed 
no extinction, but the only true life. Isn't 
this the state St. Paul meant when he 



Distons, i3S 



said, " Whether in the body I can not tell 
or whether out of the body I can not 
tell"? 

— Tennyson, 



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